Nick Clegg, reportedly leader of the Liberal Democrat party, announced in a press conference on Tuesday that he has now developed a full-blown addiction to Class A drugs as sign of his dedication to raising the profile of his party.

Clegg, who has struggled to gain the public recognition and popularity of his predecessors, and who is now being upstaged by the new ‘tough guy’ image of the Prime Minister, and even the pregnant wife of the Conservative leader, announced to a press conference held in a drugs den in Harlesden that his decision was a sign of the commitment he had to leading his party to power, and that Liberals should return to their constituencies and ‘prepare to be governed by a junkie strung out on shit, man.’

The controversial new strategy, devised by Jane Bonham-Carter, Lib Dem Director of Communications and Clegg’s personal dealer, followed focus group studies showing that Clegg was still suffering from a lower presence in the current public consciousness than every liberal leader back to and including Gladstone, ‘but then even dear old William did have that thing about trips ‘reforming’ prossies’ noted the party’s new PR chief.

‘Nick just didn’t have a hook,’ explained Bonham-Carter, ‘it started going downhill with sweet old Ming whose thing was he was a bit old and sounded like someone from Flash Gordon, but before that we’d had the classic Kennedy booze-hound routine, and before that lovely old Paddy, with his special forces history so there was always that possibility that he’d killed a man — and that was before he started boffing his secretary’.

Clegg had apparently initially favoured the Ashdown approach to leadership, but this was ruled out by insiders when his back story revealed the closest he’d got to one-to-one lethal combat was being quite rude to a call centre employee once. Mrs Clegg was also rumoured to be somewhat resistant to the prospect of his having an affair with his personal assistant to raise the party profile, as was Clegg’s parliamentary secretary, Trevor.

‘This was all we were left with bro,’ explained a clearly woozy Clegg, while pumping his fist to bring up a vein. ‘I suggested a kinda double act routine with me and my deputy, like the two Davids had going back in the day, but even I couldn’t remember who he was, so it was ‘just say yes’ for me.’

‘The downside is the vital late night Commons session on amendments to zoning laws for the hardworking people of rural Cornwall leave me jonesing like a cheap crackhouse whore,’ he continued, ‘but it’ll be worth it when I’m PM and making surprise visits to Afghanistan. This shit is fair trade, right?’